Our people

Aila, with her late partner, Dr Keith Scott, co-founded the Society in 1982. Both gave up promising careers in biochemistry to devote their lives and professional expertise to the protection of Australia’s rainforests.

Passion, persistence, scientific credibility, hard work, luck and capacity to seize unexpected windows of opportunity have been the keys to success. Teamwork and networking are vital too.

43 years later,
- 1.5 million hectares of wet forests in five bioregions have been protected,
- three World Heritage areas have been listed,
- all rainforest logging on public land has ceased,
- a reform was enacted to bring 63 per cent of Queensland’s degraded lands into good condition, and
- a rescue plan is in progress for Springbrook plateau, one of the world’s most significant refugia for subtropical rainforest, where the earliest ancestry of planet Earth's plant and animal Kingdoms survive.

Aila's Wikipedia profile.

Prof. A.J. Brown AM is Professor of public policy and law in the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, where he specialises in public integrity, accountability, governance reform and public trust.

He is also Chair of Transparency International Australia, the world anti-corruption organisation, having served since 2010 on the TI Australia board of directors, and from 2017-2022 on the TI global board. In 2019-20, he led development of TI's worldwide strategy Holding Power to Account, 2021-2030.

In 2023, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the law and public policy, particularly through whistleblower protection.

See A.J.’s Griffith University profile.

Dr Martin Taylor has been involved in full-time conservation work for several decades in the USA as conservation scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, internationally working for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and in Australia, working for the National Parks Association of Queensland, at ARCS and as protected area manager for WWF-Australia from 2006 to 2021.

Martin is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Environment, University of Queensland.

His researchgate profile is here.

With partner Mike West, Linda has been involved in conservation since the mid 1970s and has been active in many campaigns:
- Halting logging and protecting the Conondale Range
- Halting sand mining and protecting Moreton Is
- Halting logging and protecting Kgari as World Heritage (formerly Fraser Island)
- Preventing sale of Qld Stock Routes
- Working with AWC to buy and protect Bowra Station
- Preventing luxury cabin developments within Cooloola National Park

Ingrid started her association with ARCS as Office Manager and Project Officer in 1996, a position she held for four years. Ingrid played an important role in the Society in the lead-up to the historic South East Queensland Forests Agreement in 1999, making an invaluable contribution to botanical surveys that established outstanding significance of the region’s forests, and coordinating the public campaign for ARCS.

Ingrid has since worked in the private renewable energy sector, and at various environmental NGOs in defence of Australia's oceans, coasts, freshwater and forests. She has a lifelong devotion to protecting Australia's precious natural places.

Ingrid is one of Queensland Conservation Council’s inaugural Champions of Conservation.

Alec has lead successful environmental campaigns across Australia since 1985. He was Director of The Wilderness Society (TWS) from 1997 to 2010, growing the organization from 7,000 members, a $1 million turnover and 28 staff to one with 45,000 members, a $15 million turnover and 200 staff.

Highlights of achievements under his direction include inscription of Australia’s Sub Antarctic Islands on the World Heritage list, closure of the Jabiluka uranium mine in World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park, blocking creation of a nuclear fuel dump in Northern Australia, and the ultimate breakdown of Gunns Ltd stranglehold on the forest woodchipping industry in Tasmania through skilled market pressure, facilitating (with Virginia Young) the creation of the Ecosystems Climate Alliance (ECA) in 2009.

Alec had a key role in the successful extension in 2013 of the Eastern Boundary of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

He has maintained and nurtured extensive international networks through his work with IUCN, World Heritage processes and the World Wilderness Congress. He has represented ARCS at many of these forums.

He was awarded the Australian Humanitarian Award on behalf of TWS in 2000, the Wild Magazine’s Environmentalists of the Year in 2001 and recognized as one of ‘20 Global Wilderness Visionaries’ by the World Wilderness Congress in 2010.

Prior to her involvement in conservation Virginia was a successful business woman as well as heading the mining section of the Foreign Investment Division within Federal Treasury. Virginia has been involved in successful environmental campaigns across Australia since the late 1980s. She worked closely with ARCS in the lead-up to the successful South East Queensland Forests Agreement which she co-signed in 1999 on behalf of the Wilderness Society. There she played a leading role as the Wilderness Society's National Forest Campaign Co-ordinator.

Virginia pioneered a continental-scale approach to nature conservation in Australia with the establishment of Wild Country. In support of this initiative she established the Wild Country Science Council of eminent Australian scientists to provide independent advice to guide that initiative.

Since 2007 she established the Ecosystems Climate Alliance (ECA), an alliance of international ENGO’s that feed good science, policy and nature advocacy into the United Nations Framework Convention on climate Change (UNFCCC).

Virginia is currently Chair of Gondwana-Link a ground-breaking project restoring and reconnecting lands across SW Western Australia; and Managing Director of Forests Alive, a company that offers carbon credits for native forest protection. Virginia was awarded Wild magazine's Environmentalists of the Year in 2001 and was recognized as one of 20 ‘Global Wilderness Visionaries’ by the World Wilderness Congress in 2010.